Cloth slitting machine



Nov. 7, 1933. gym-H I 1,934,152

CLOTH SLITTING MACHINE Filed May 1931 s Sheets-Sheet 1 Nov. 7, 1933. R Q sMn-H 1,934,152

CLOTH SLITTING MACHINE Filed May 6, 1931 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 NOV. 7, 1933. O $M|TH 1,934,152

CLOTH SLITTING MACHINE Filed May 6,1931 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 Ill/11111111;

Inentar Nov. 7, 1933. R. 0. SMITH CLOTH SLITTING MACHINE Filed May 6, 1931 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 Nov. 7, 1933. R Q. s n- 1,934,152

CLOTH SLITTING MACHINE Filed May 1931 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 Imfenm lava 0105 95/1235 Patented Nov. 7, 1933 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFIQE Nachman-Springfilled Corporation,

Chicago,

Ill., a corporation of Illinois Application May 6, 1931. Serial No. 535,385

'7 Claims.

This invention has for its object to provide a machine for cutting angularly disposed slits in textile fabric or the like at regular intervals longitudinally of the fabric and in a given spaced relation to each other laterally of said fabric.

A further object of the invention is to provide a machine of the character set forth which may be easily and quickly adjusted to Vary the spacing of the slits in the fabric from each other longitudinally and laterally of the fabric.

Other objects of the invention are more fully pointed out in or readilyunderstood from the following specification.

A suitable embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a cloth slitting machine constructed in accordance with the invention.

Fig. 2 is a front elevation of the same.

Figs 3 is a vertical longitudinal section of the same on the line 3-3 of Fig. 2.

Fig. 4 is a fragmentary inverted plan section of the same on the line 4-4 of Fig. 2.

Fig. 5 is a fragmentary plan section of the same on the line 5-5 of Fig. 2.

Fig. 6 is a fragmentary vertical section of a spring assembly for mattresses or cushions of which the slitted fabric produced by the machine is a component element.

Fig. 7 is a plan section on the line 77 of Fig. 6.

In the manufacture of spring assembles .of the type shown in Figs. 6 and 7, the end coils of the springs 1 are engaged in fiat pockets 2 formed between sheets of textile fabric 3 and the inner sheets 4 thereof, the latter being provided with slits 5 extending at an angle of fortyfive degrees to the stitch chains 6 and '7, respectively, which join the fabrics 3 and 4 and border the square pockets 2. The latter are varied in size to suit springs having end coils of different diameters, it being common practice to use large diameter springs 1 in the manufacture of spring-filled mattresses and smaller diameter springs l in the manufacture of seat cushions.

In the manufacture of these spring assemblies, it is desirable to feed the fabrics 3 and 4 continuously from two rolls or bolts thereof to a gang-needle sewing machine which produces the stitch chains 6 extending longitudinally of both fabrics 3 and 4 and to slit the lower fabric during its travel to the needles of the sewing machine.

In the instance illustrated, the spring assembly includes the layers 8 of padding material which is deposited upon the upper face of the fabric 3 by means of a camel-back lapper during travel of said fabric 3, the stitch chains 6 and 7 being passed through this layer of padcling to secure the latter to the Walls of the I completed assembly as shown.

The, substantially continuous fabric webs 3 and 4 are cut into given lengths beyond the zone of operation of the sewing machine needles and the cross stitch chains '7 are then introduced by another gang-needle sewing machine.

The machine of the present invention is, therefore, synchronized with the fabric feed mechanism of the first-mentioned sewing machine to slit the fabric at proper intervals during its travel at the speed determined by said first-mentioned sewing machine. Both the sewing machine and the slitting machine are driven by the main shaft 9 which is geared by means of the vertical shaft 10 and suitable sets of bevel gears with the shaft 11 of the sewing machine and the shaft 10 is in turn geared to the vertical shaft 12 of the sewing machine.

The shaft 9 is equipped at one end with a to engage in the fabric web 4 to be slitted by the said slitting mechanism. The said belt 17, which is of greater width than the fabric 4, serves to transmit rotary movement from the said driven pulley or drum, which is not shown, to said pulley or drum 16 and thus to the shaft 19 which, as is shown in Fig. 3, is geared to the countershaft 20 and thus to the shafts 21 and 22, by means of chain and sprocket wheel gearing.

The said shafts 21 and 22 are equipped' with pulleys or drums 23 over which the fabric web 3 is trained, which is here shown as also carrying the layer 8 of padding material, said gearing being arranged to drive the said pulleys 23 at the same surface speed as the drum or pulley 16 and its companion.

The fab c 3, With its layer 8 of padding material, also passes under an idle roll or drum 24 disposed well above the plane of travel of the web carrying portion of the belt 17 and in front of the sewing machine and becomes disposed upon the slitted fabric 4 behind the slitting machine and is then engaged by the pins 18 of the belt 17 which serve to prevent relative lateral or longitudinal movement between the webs 3 and 4.

The countershaft 14 is geared, by means of variable speed gearing hereinafter described, to the countershaft 28 and this, in turn, is geared by means of suitable gearing hereinafter more fully described, to the shaft 29 which is disposed below the table 30 over which the belt 17 passes.

Disposed at a suitable elevation above the table 30 and beyond the side edges thereof, are side frame members 31 which carry the bearings 32 and 33, respectively, for pairs of shafts disposed at opposite sides of the machine in horizontal axial alignment. Each of said shafts in the respective bearings 32 and 33 is equipped at its outer end with a sprocket wheel, and all of said sprocket wheels are geared by means of chains 34 to the shaft 29 thus to be rotated in unison in the same direction.

The inner end of each shaft in the respective bearings 32 and 33 is equipped with a crank-pin 32 and 33 respectively, which engages in the connecting bars 35 which are horizontally aligned with and opposed to each other on respectively opposite sides of the machine.

The bars 35 carry a cross-bar 36 on which the electric motor 37 is mounted. The latter actuates the slitting disk drive mechanism which is also carried by the cross-bar 36 and is hereinafter fully described.

Disposed below the cross-bar 36 and between the side frame members 31, is a flat plate 38 having upwardly projecting ribs 39 adjacent its side edges to border a channel 40 over which a plate 41 is disposed. The said plate 38 is supported adjacent its ends upon the shoes 42 rigidly mounted on the table 30. The plate 38 is provided at each end thereof with a pair of upstanding pins 43 which pass through and are reciprocable in parallel vertical openings in the bars 35. Compression springs 44 disposed about the pins 43 are interposed between the plates 38 and the bars 35 and serve to hold the former down upon the shoes 42 to effect horizontal reciprocation of the plate 38 during the rotation of the crank-pins 32 and33 in the bars 35. The fabric 4 is trained over said plates 38 and 41 as is shown in Fig. 3.

The cross-bar 36 is equipped with a series of downwardly projecting yokes 45 in which the shafts of the cutting or slitting disks 46 are journalled, the said disks 46 being disposed between the arms of said yokes. The shaft of the motor 37 isdisposed at an angle of about fortyfive degrees to the longitudinal axis of the crossbar 36 and the axes of rotation of the disks 46 are substantially parallel with that of the motor shaft.

The yokes 45 are spaced from each other a distance equal to that separating the slits 5 from each other laterally of the fabric 4. The shaft of one of said disks 46, preferably the one most nearly midway between the ends of the row of said disks, is equipped with a sheave 49 which is geared by means of the belt 48 with the sheave 47 on the shaft of the motor 37. Said shaft of the said disk so directly geared to the motor 3'? is equipped with spur-gear wheels 50 and 51 on opposite sides of the yoke 45 thereof, the said spur-gear wheels meshing with companion spurgear wheels on the shafts of the disks 46 of the next adjacent yokes, the spur gear wheel 50 of one of said shafts meshing with the spur-gear wheel 51 of an adjacent shaft, thus to drive alternate disks 46 in respectively opposite directions.

The plate 41 of the cross-bar or plate 38 is provided with slots 52 which are vertically aligned with the cutting disks 46, the latter being adapted to project partly through said slots when disposed at the lower limit of their move- 'ment.

The gearing between the shafts 28 and 29 includes a speed reducing gear train in the housing 53 from which the shaft 54 is actuated, the latter being geared to the shaft 29 by means of the sprocket wheels over which the sprocket chain 55 is trained.

The variable speed gearing between the shafts l4 and 28 is shown in Fig. 2 and comprises the sub-frame 56 which carries the bearings for said shafts 14 and 28.

Keyed to each of said shafts is a pair of opposed cones 14 and 28 respectively, which are movable toward and from each other. A belt carrying friction plates or bars 57 is trained over said pairs of cones 14 and 28 Mounted between their ends upon the pivots 58 at opposite sides of the sub-frame 56, is a pair of levers 59 equipped with pairs of members 60 presenting sphero-eoncave inner faces to engage the sphero-convex outer face portions of the cones 14 and 28 said levers 59 are suitably engaged with the right and left threaded screw-shaft 61 suitably rotatably mounted in the sub-frame 56 and which is equipped with a hand wheel 62 for manual operation.

The said variable speed gearing is of a wellknown type and, per se, forms no part of the present invention. The operation thereof is that upon rotating the said screw-shaft 61, one pair of said cones will be moved in one direction and the other thereof in the opposite direction, thus to increase the radius of the arc of engagement of the bars of the belt with the cones 14 and decrease the same with respect to the cones 28*, thereby to increase the speed of rotation of the shaft 28 relatively to the shaft 14.

The operation of the machine is as follows: The shaft 19 and the roller thereon rotate always at the same speed and thus the belt 17 is caused to travel at a constant speed. The pins 18 on said belt serve to drive the fabric web at thesame speed as the said belt.

During travel of the fabric web 4 over the slotted plate 41, the shafts in bearings 32 and 33 rotate at a speed which is determined by the desired spacing of the slits in the fabric web from each other longitudinally of the latter, and for the purposes of this description, it will be assumed that this spacing is four inches and the speed of travel of the web is one foot per minute. In that event the shafts in bearings 32 and 33 will rotate at the rate of three R. P. M.

As said shafts in bearings 32 and 33 rotate, the crank-pins 32 and 33 will rotate the bars 35 which remain horizontally disposed during rotation. As these bars carry the cross-bar 36 which carries the electric motor to drive the cloth-slitting disks 46, and also carries the yokes 45 in which the shafts of said disks are journailed it will be obvious that said disks. 46 are rotated about a horizontal axis while also rotating on their own axes so that said disks thus acquire an up-and-down and forward-and-back movement during their high-speed rotation.

The pins 43 which are rigid with the plate 38 and are vertically reciprocable in the bars 35, are held against vertical movement by the springs 44 which are compressed during the downward movement of the bars 35. Consequently, the rotation of the bars 35 by the crankpins 32 and 33 will cause the pins 43 to be reciprocated horizontally and thus the plates 38 and 41 will be similarly reciprocated in synchronism with the forward-and-back movements of the bars 35 and the disks 46. The up-and-down movements of the said bars 35 and disks 46 serve to cause the said disks to penetrate and split the fabric as their cutting edges project into the slots in the plate 41 which are always disposed in the Vertical planes of the said disks.

Thus the disks 48 will slit the fabric three times in each foot of travel of the latter which, necessarily, provides one set of slits in each four inches of the said fabric web.

The slits produced in the fabric 4 willbe increased in number and the spacing thereof relatively to each other both laterally and longitudinally of the fabric 4 will be decreased as the diameters of the flat pockets is decreased to accord with the smaller diameter end coils of springs l to be engaged in the flat pockets above described. The latter may vary appreciably, for example, from a minimum diameter of three inches to a maximum of four and one-half inches, by one-half inch steps.

Hence, if after producing a quantity of fabric 4 having the slits spaced three and one-half inches apart, another quantity is required wherein the slits are spaced four inches apart, the operator will remove the bar 36 with its yokes, etc., used for producing the first-mentioned slitted fabric 4 and will replace the same with another bar 36 equipped with yokes 45 and cutting disks 46 disposed four inches apart, and will then adjust the spacing of the slits to be produced by the mechanism longitudinally of the fabric 4, by operating the screw-shaft 61 to decrease the speed of the shaft 28 to accord with the wider spacing of the slits from each other, since the speed of travel of the fabric 4 over the plate 41 is always the same.

The direction of rotation of the pairs of shafts journalled in the bearings 32 and 33 is such that the disks 46 project partly through the slots 52 in the plate 41 during movement of the plate 38 toward the sewing machine, said direction of rotation of said shafts being indicated by an arrow in Fig. l.

The springs 44 also act as counterbalance means for the weight of the cross-bar 35 and the load thereon and thus prevents appreciable variation of load on the drive mechanism for actuating the shaft 29 and the shafts of the bearings 32 and 33. The machine thus operates smoothly and noiselessly.

The cross-bar 36 and the connecting bars 35.

which carry the same, together constitutg a carriage for the motor and the slitting disk mechanism which effects reciprocation of the plate 38 and the alternate positioning of the slitting disks out of the plane of travel of the fabric 4 and into intersecting relation thereto.

The speed of travel of the belt 17 and fabricv 4 being uniform at all times, it follows that when the speed of rotation of the carriage of the slitting disks and the consequent speed of reciprocation of the plate 38 is increased, the said plate 38 will travel somewhat faster than said fabric 4, but as the stroke of .said plate 38 is short, this difference is of no consequence as the walls of the slits cut by the disks are necessarily yielding and, because of their angle to the direction of travel of the fabric, there is no appreciable tendency to pull or displace the latter.

I claim as my invention:

l. A cloth slitting machine including means for effecting continuous travel of the fabric in one direction, a-reciprocable member over which the fabric travels, a series of rotating cutting disks disposed above said member, a carriage common to all of said cutting disks, mechanism actuating said carriage to cause said cutting disks to move downwardly and coincidentally with the direction of travel of said member and said fabric to slit the latter during travel thereof and to move upwardly to throw said disks out a of the path of said fabric and rearwardly during the reverse travel of said member.

2. A cloth slitting machine including means for effecting continuous travel in one direction of fabric to be slitted at intervals, a reciprocable member over which said fabric passes during its travel, a carriage disposed above and engaged with said member, slitting devices mounted on said carriage, and mechanism for rotating said carriage about an axis parallel with and extending transversely of the direction of travel of said fabric thereby to cause said slitting devices to intersect the path of travel of the fabric at regular intervals and to reciprocate said member, and a motor on said carriage for actuating said slitting devices.

3. A cloth slitting machine including means for effecting continuous travel in one direction of fabric to be slitted at intervals, a member reciprocable in a path parallel with the path of travel of said fabric and over which the fabric passes, a carriage disposed above said member, vertical projections on said member having sliding engagement with said carriage, slitting devices mounted on said carriage, and mechanism for rotating said carriage about an axis parallel with and extending transversely of the direction of travel of said fabric, thereby to cause said slitting devices to intersect the path of travel of the fabric at regular intervals and to reciprocate said member, and compression springs interposed between said carriage and said member.

4. A cloth slitting machine including means for efiecting continuous travel in one direction of fabric to be slitted at intervals, a member reciprocable in a path parallel with the path of travel of said fabric and over which the fabric passes, a carriage disposed above said member, vertical projections on said member having sliding engagement with said carriage, slitting devices mounted on said carriage, and mechanism for rotating said carriage about an axis parallel with and extending transversely of the direction of travel of said fabric, thereby to cause said slitting devices to intersect the path of travel of the fabric at regular intervals and to reciprocate said member, and compression springs interposed between said carriage and said member, and a motor on said carriage for actuating said slitting devices independently of the mechanism for actuating said carriage.

5. A cloth slitting machine including means for effecting continuous travel in one direction of fabric to be slitted at intervals, a member reciprocable in a path parallel with the path of travel of said fabric and over which the fabric passes, a carriage disposed above said member, vertical projections on said member having sliding engagement with said carriage, slitting devices mounted on said carriage, mechanism for rotating said carriage about an axis parallel with and extending transversely of the direction of travel of said fabric thereby to cause said slitting devices to intersect the path of travel of the fabric at regular intervals and toreciprocate said member, at a speed coinciding with that of travel of the fabric.

6. A cloth slitting machine including means for efiecting continuous travel in one direction of a fabric web to be slitted at intervals, a row of slitting disks each disposed above and at an angle to the direction of travel of the said web, a carriage for said disks extending transversely of the direction of travel of said web, a motor thereon for rotating said disks, a member over which the fabric passes reciprocable in a path parallel with the path of travel of said web, means connecting said member with the said carriage, and mechanism for rotating said carriage about an axis parallel with and extending transversely of the path of travel of said web for causing said disks to penetrate and slit said web and for reciprocating said member, the web supporting face of the latter having slots into which said disks project when at the lower limit of their movement. I

7. A cloth slitting machine including means for efiectingcontinuous travel in one direction of a fabric web to be slitted at intervals, a row of slitting disks each disposed above and at an angle to the direction of travel of the said web, a carriage for said disks extending transversely of the direction of travel of said web, a motor thereon for rotating said disks, a member over which the fabric passes reciprocable in a path parallel with the path of travel of said web, means connecting said member with the said carriage, and mechanism for rotating said carriage about an axis parallel with and extending transversely of the path of travel of said web for causing said disks to penetrate and slit said web and for reciprocating said member, compression springs interposed between said memher and said carriage, the web supporting face of the latter having slots into which said disks project when at the lower limit of their movement.

RUDOLPH 0. SMITH. 

